Perennial Favorites ‘Rudolph’ and ‘Charlie Brown’ Fall Short This Year–So Which Holiday Special Was the Most Watched of 2010?

Television viewers tune in faithfully year after year to watch holiday classics such as the stop-action "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and the animated "A Charlie Brown Christmas," but neither of those was this year’s most-watched Christmas special, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s The Live Feed blog.

Instead, the top-rated holiday special for the period between Nov. 24 and Dec. 28 was CBS’s Hallmark Hall of Fame movie "November Christmas," which averaged 13.5 million viewers for its Nov. 28 telecast, the story reports.

The second-most-watched holiday show was a tie between CBS’s annual airing of the classic "Rudolph,” which first appeared in 1964, and NBC’s "Christmas at Rockefeller Center," with 11.3 million viewers each on Nov. 30.

The 1965 "Charlie Brown" special, meanwhile, drew 8.1 million viewers on ABC on Dec. 7, with a second airing attracting 6.4 million viewers on Dec. 16, the story notes.